Words and ideas. The power of rephrasing?

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken Robinson led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity.

Meiss van der Rohe

Visions of Space is a riveting BBC documentary series exploring the life and works of three remarkable architects whose vision and work has reshaped the modern world. The powerful, direct, and provocative presentation by the eloquent Robert Hughes makes this a gripping and informative watch. He hobbles around with his walking stick slowly, thoughtfully, majestically and suddenly bursts out into an eloquence which is energetic, passionate, and opinionated.

The first part of this series is called Mies van der Rohe: Less is more

Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru Na Haka), is a 1988 animated film written and directed by Isao Takahata. It is often hailed as the most powerful anti war movie ever made.

I was lucky to run into this very good discussion about the movie by Roger Ebert. It about nine minutes long and discusses a unique aspect of the story telling technique used in the movie called a pillow shot.

The Spectacular Sport of Parkour

The French have pioneered this martial art and sport combination which is built on the premise that any obstacle can be surmounted, physical or mental. This inspirational attitude, philosophy and lifestyle has had an impact on their films.

A delightful short movie from Pixar.

Partly Cloudy is a delightful interpretation of the clouds and storks story of where do babies come from…

I am a big fan of spaghetti westerns. This aficionado towards westerns started when a bunch of us in school cycled down to Symphony cinema hall in Bangalore and saw the movie “Good Bad and the Ugly“. At that time we had no clue that it was an Italian movie called“Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il”.

I guess a lot of us did not know that spaghetti westerns were not made in Hollywood and were mainly produced by Italian Studios during the 1960′s and these were shot in the deserts of Spain and not in American Southwest. These were low budget movies which catered to mainly the European Audience. It was only after the movie called “A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari)” directed by Sergio Leone staring a then a TV – Star Client Eastwood and with musical scores composed by Ennio Morricone that the Americans started to take notice. Sergio Leone followed this by For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which were of relatively higher budgets.

Movies of that genre include Django, Sergio Leone Trilogy,Sabata Trilogy and whole lot of other movies. Between 1960 and 1975, European film production companies made nearly 600 Westerns.

My Top five Spaghetti Westerns are

1. Once Upon a Time in the West
2. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
3. Day of Anger (Giorni dell’ira, I)
4. Fistful of Dollars and
5. A Few Dollars more